NUGD – My first PRS

I’ve played very few PRS guitars over the years, never owned one, and was generally more impressed with their amazing looks than their playability. They were impeccably built but their feel just never quite meshed with me. That said, I also hadn’t really played much since PRS started getting known. I started playing in 1978 when I was about 18, played a LOT for the next 8-10 years, and then barely played at all for the next 30 while life was getting in the way. I got back into it bigly over a year ago and started thinking about getting something really nice for a big birthday I have coming up. I’ve been a Strat player most of my life, but recently sort of backed into an Ibanez semi-hollow that I fell in love with and it reminded me of how nice a humbucker guitar could be. Also, my playing has mellowed a LOT this time around. I used to be a blues rocker with an emphasis on the rock part, now I’m basically a straight blues and spacey rock player, with the emphasis on blues and space – not a lot of rock these days. So the smoothness of humbuckers really appeals to me now. The Ibanez basically pushed the Strat back to a distant #2.

Even though I’d been lukewarm on PRS over the years, I’d read so many over the top glowing reviews of the 594 from just about everyone from any musical genre who’d tried one, I got sort of obsessed with checking one out. I’d been looking for one in my local area to go check out for quite a while, but kept coming up dry (I played a few other PRSs and liked them well enough but not enough to spend the $$ on) and I wasn’t into doing a road trip to try one in a store for 15 minutes. I hate playing in stores to begin with. So I finally decided to just order a used one from Guitar Center, knowing if it wasn’t my cup of tea I could drive 15 minutes and return it, and only be out $20 or so for shipping. They had several used ones in stock, almost all ten tops and almost all priced about $800-$1100 less than the current new price. I’d just about bought a whale blue one when at the last minute a tobacco burst model popped up for a couple hundred dollars less. I called the store really quickly to ask about it and the guy who’d taken it in said it looked like it had never been played and it came from a collector who often dumped barely touched expensive guitars on them to help finance additional expensive guitars. He'd priced it waaaaaaay too high initially and it sat for a couple of months so then he got real aggressive and cut the price to lower than he probably should have. I was much more into the more understated tobacco burst finish than the faded whale blue and I was happy to save some $$, so I jumped on the tobacco burst.

It showed up a few days ago and my reaction to it is basically the same as almost anyone I’ve read or seen on YouTube. The playability is sublime, the sound is somehow fuller than any guitar I’ve ever played. I’m not nearly a good enough player to really take full advantage of the character of a guitar like this, but I’m good enough to appreciate just how good it feels and sounds and to really enjoy the hell out of playing it. This is by far the most I’ve ever spent on a guitar – not even close – so I’m gonna have to sell my Strat and Ibanez to help pay for it (and probably a bicycle frame and a couple of camera lenses!). So I was really pleased with just how good the single coil sounds from this guitar are as well. Using the coil splitter and the volume and tone controls, I can just about find combinations that get me in the neighborhood of a strat quack, which is all I’d been using the strat for lately.

Anyway, pics or it didn’t happen, so here are the pics. I really love seeing all of the really ornate finishes on some of the guitars PRS does, but my taste is really more towards understated beauty and this guitar has that in spades. I’m also happy to be getting back to one electric guitar. I’ve had two a few times and one always sat unused, so I’d rather just have one and not have to think about the other one and feel guilty for not playing it. And this does everything I want it to.

One funny detail was buying a guitar from Guitar Center and finding among the case candy and documentation a 55 point checklist card from Sweetwater, where I guess the original buyer got this. Didn’t expect to see THAT!

I can’t do the classy look of this guitar justice photographically. It’s really gorgeous to see across the room or up close… (edit - updated with new portrait shot)

Nice burst! With the mixed hardware, that should be an Artist Pack guitar or Wood Library guitar as well. I would not be surprised if that was not a Brazilian fretboard.

Click to expand...

You got me thinking, because the neck looks and plays (at least in my experience) more like ebony than most rosewood necks I've played. And I was thinking maybe they initially priced it as high as they did because it was an artist package. But I just looked at the tag in the case and under special order it just says "10 top". I thought this was a 2016 guitar, but it was made in May of 2017. So I guess it's rosewood but it's the smoothest, hardest, fastest rosewood neck I've ever played. I've always preferred ebony and maple necks to rosewood, but if they can do rosewood like this, I'm in.

I’ve played very few PRS guitars over the years, never owned one, and was generally more impressed with their amazing looks than their playability. They were impeccably built but their feel just never quite meshed with me. That said, I also hadn’t really played much since PRS started getting known. I started playing in 1978 when I was about 18, played a LOT for the next 8-10 years, and then barely played at all for the next 30 while life was getting in the way. I got back into it bigly over a year ago and started thinking about getting something really nice for a big birthday I have coming up. I’ve been a Strat player most of my life, but recently sort of backed into an Ibanez semi-hollow that I fell in love with and it reminded me of how nice a humbucker guitar could be. Also, my playing has mellowed a LOT this time around. I used to be a blues rocker with an emphasis on the rock part, now I’m basically a straight blues and spacey rock player, with the emphasis on blues and space – not a lot of rock these days. So the smoothness of humbuckers really appeals to me now. The Ibanez basically pushed the Strat back to a distant #2.

Even though I’d been lukewarm on PRS over the years, I’d read so many over the top glowing reviews of the 594 from just about everyone from any musical genre who’d tried one, I got sort of obsessed with checking one out. I’d been looking for one in my local area to go check out for quite a while, but kept coming up dry (I played a few other PRSs and liked them well enough but not enough to spend the $$ on) and I wasn’t into doing a road trip to try one in a store for 15 minutes. I hate playing in stores to begin with. So I finally decided to just order a used one from Guitar Center, knowing if it wasn’t my cup of tea I could drive 15 minutes and return it, and only be out $20 or so for shipping. They had several used ones in stock, almost all ten tops and almost all priced about $800-$1100 less than the current new price. I’d just about bought a whale blue one when at the last minute a tobacco burst model popped up for a couple hundred dollars less. I called the store really quickly to ask about it and the guy who’d taken it in said it looked like it had never been played and it came from a collector who often dumped barely touched expensive guitars on them to help finance additional expensive guitars. He'd priced it waaaaaaay too high initially and it sat for a couple of months so then he got real aggressive and cut the price to lower than he probably should have. I was much more into the more understated tobacco burst finish than the faded whale blue and I was happy to save some $$, so I jumped on the tobacco burst.

It showed up a few days ago and my reaction to it is basically the same as almost anyone I’ve read or seen on YouTube. The playability is sublime, the sound is somehow fuller than any guitar I’ve ever played. I’m not nearly a good enough player to really take full advantage of the character of a guitar like this, but I’m good enough to appreciate just how good it feels and sounds and to really enjoy the hell out of playing it. This is by far the most I’ve ever spent on a guitar – not even close – so I’m gonna have to sell my Strat and Ibanez to help pay for it (and probably a bicycle frame and a couple of camera lenses!). So I was really pleased with just how good the single coil sounds from this guitar are as well. Using the coil splitter and the volume and tone controls, I can just about find combinations that get me in the neighborhood of a strat quack, which is all I’d been using the strat for lately.

Anyway, pics or it didn’t happen, so here are the pics. I really love seeing all of the really ornate finishes on some of the guitars PRS does, but my taste is really more towards understated beauty and this guitar has that in spades. I’m also happy to be getting back to one electric guitar. I’ve had two a few times and one always sat unused, so I’d rather just have one and not have to think about the other one and feel guilty for not playing it. And this does everything I want it to.

One funny detail was buying a guitar from Guitar Center and finding among the case candy and documentation a 55 point checklist card from Sweetwater, where I guess the original buyer got this. Didn’t expect to see THAT!

I can’t do the classy look of this guitar justice photographically. It’s really gorgeous to see across the room or up close…